iPrice Malaysia content marketing executive Jeremy Chew told The Star Online that the company did not intend for the joke to be mistaken for the real thing.

"Our intent was not to deceive, but to share our imagination of how it would be when Amazon enters South-East Asia," he said.

He added that the iPrice group was excited to hear the news of Amazon's impending entry into the region, and wanted to play around with the idea of a localised Amazon website.

"Our designers and writers added local humour to the materials to hint that the press release is an April Fool's prank," he said, referring to Raja Bomoh and Rick Astley's "cameo appearances."

Several technology portals reported late last year that Amazon would enter South-East Asia via a launch of selected services in Singapore slated for the first quarter of 2017, but no notable developments have emerged since.

iPrice Group is a regional online shopping platform that allows users to compare the prices of goods across different e-commerce sites.

Malaysia was not the only target of the group’s joke – it also released similar press releases in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.